The Emerald Isle Trilogy Boxed Set

by Vincent, Renee

  Tait looked at Gunnar long and hard. “Nevan is correct. If I go, I will only end up wanting to kill Breandán. So I am counting on you to be there in my stead.”

  Tait noticed a fire burning in Gunnar’s eyes now and it pleased him. “What is it you want me to do?”

  “I want you to keep your eye on Breandán. I never trusted that man, especially after he had told Dægan—to his face—he loved Mara. I was barely able to hold Dægan back from killing him right then and there, and I know if Dægan were here now—no matter what Nevan thinks—he would put a stop to this. He would not allow that Irishman to even think of gaining Mara’s love. You,” Tait added pointing a stern finger at Gunnar, “need to make certain Mara comes back alive, safe and sound. I owe it to Dægan to see to her safety, and if you do this, I will reward you. Ten fold.”

  “My lord?” Gunnar asked, not grasping the full picture.

  Tait leaned forward for emphasis. “What is it you most desire?”

  Gunnar drew his face backward. “You know what I have always wanted. Mara.”

  “Then I will grant you her hand in marriage the day you bring her back from Connacht unscathed. I will gladly reward your loyalty since everyone else on this isle seems to have forgotten mine.”

  “What will Nevan say?” Gunnar asked in concern.

  “He had no qualms about going over my head this day. And so I have no reservations about going over his.” Tait put a sound hand on the man’s shoulder. “Fail me not, Gunnar.”

  ****

  Tait left the mead hall with his mind in shambles. Though he gave Gunnar specific instructions, he still had his doubts. If he were to go to Connacht himself, he’d feel a lot better about it. But, as frustrated as he was with Nevan, he knew the king was right. He needed to stay close to his expectant wife. The birth of his child was very important to him and he didn’t want to miss it.

  As he hurried to his own longhouse, he was glad of two things: the rain had finally ended, and Thordia would be anxious to see him. She always was. Even when he’d be gone for only a short trip into Gaillimh’s port, she’d greet him with an embrace so tight and comforting. And right now, he could certainly use a woman’s love.

  He opened the door to his longhouse and stepped inside, his first sight being that of his precious Thordia and her smile.

  “Tait!” she said, running to him and hugging him around his neck.

  His arms immediately wrapped around her, her large round belly jutting against his waist. He relished the feel of her soft swelled body, his groin twitching in his breeches from the solid pressure.

  Tait ran his hand down her back and around her stomach, cradling two of the precious things in his life. He drew back a bit so he could see her better. He swore she looked different—more beautiful, if that were possible. Her blue eyes sparkled as she smiled, her hair seemed thicker and more golden, and her breasts, now plump from the pregnancy, created the most enticing slit of cleavage he had ever seen. He dared to cup them and find out just how wonderfully heavy they’d feel in his hands.

  Oh, how she excited him!

  “Hello, Father,” Alfarinn said, joining his parents in their embrace.

  Tait, unaware of his son’s presence, halfheartedly set aside his sexual urges and glanced down at the boy hugging him around the legs. “I was scared that man hurt you.”

  Tait’s irritation returned. Not with his son, of course, but because of the fear Breandán had put in Alfarinn’s head. Judging by the strength of his little embrace, he must have been worried sick. The only thing Tait could be thankful of right now was that Alfarinn didn’t actually use Breandán’s name. He only referred to him as, that man.

  “As you can see, your father is well,” Thordia said, rubbing the top of Alfarinn’s head, her eyes watching Tait the whole time.

  He could tell, by the sincere look on her face, his wife had also been worried.

  “Your mother is right,” he said, pretending to pass off his loss as a minor setback. “The Irishman did naught to me from which I cannot recover.”

  Alfarinn looked up at him with utter confusion. “But he beat you. I thought no man was stronger than you, Father.”

  Tait’s hands fell to his sides and he skirted around his family, reigning in his afflictions as best he could. “He simply won a battle, Alfarinn, but he will not win the war.”

  Thordia cocked her head in concern, watching her husband shake with fury. “Alfarinn, why do you not run along and play now that the rain has ceased. Your father has had a trying day.”

  Disappointedly, Alfarinn nodded and padded to the door. He looked over his shoulder at his father, reluctant to leave, but did as his mother bid him. When the door closed behind him, Thordia returned to the subject, her hands on her hips.

  “He will not win the war…what is that supposed to mean, Tait?”

  Tait slumped into the nearest boxbed, releasing a heavy sigh. “Be not naïve, Thordia. You know well what it means. I have been humiliated in front of my men, my family, this entire isle. Even my own son thinks less of me. I will regain my dignity before this is all said and done.”

  Thordia neared him, dropping to her knees between his legs. “I favor not this side of you. ‘Tis not the man I know and love. Ottarr told me what you did. That you pulled a knife on Breandán and aimed to kill him. Do you not know how difficult it was for me to see him and Gunnar carry you out of Mara’s longhouse like that? I thought you dead. My heart broke in two seeing you lifeless and…”

  Tait heard her voice crack as her lower lip trembled. He reached up and touched her face with a gentle hand, stroking her cheek. “I am well.”

  “Because Breandán allowed you to be,” Thordia rejoined scornfully. “He could have easily killed you, but was the bigger man because he did not.”

  She could have kicked him in the groin and it would have hurt less than the words she mouthed.

  “Is that what you think?” Tait asked, his heart bleeding inside his chest.

  Thordia averted her eyes, seemingly shameful for giving it thought. She took his hand in hers. “You had no good reason for turning on Breandán as you did.”

  Tait jerked his hand away from her tender grasp, scoffing at the slim possibility she’d ever side against him. He never would have believed Thordia to do or say anything to such a degree. “Is my own wife against me?”

  She climbed up his bent legs, grasping the tunic at his chest so as to pull herself astride him. He felt her hands twist tightly in the fabric and the weight of her body settle comfortably across his lap. If she wasn’t delicate with child, he might have tossed her aside on the far length of the boxbed and removed himself from the room. But even as that harsh thought flittered across his brain, he couldn’t ignore the feel of her softness.

  Almost against his will, his hands came up around her full bottom, steadying her across his thighs as he waited for her to speak. Though his mind opposed his wife’s unfair tactics, his body found solace in her closeness.

  She laid her forehead against his, her eyes closing as she inhaled the rich male scent of him. “Do you recall the day we met?”

  Tait had no idea where she was going with this. “Of course, but—”

  “And all you wanted was to get me away from my father.”

  His lips twitched slightly, unable to hide his delight over their romantic encounter more than nine years ago. “I wanted to get you away from everyone. Including that foolish knave who followed you around like a sniveling dog in Limneach’s harbor.” Tait pulled her closer to him, her bottom nestling right over his groin.

  Thordia giggled a bit at his sudden fervor. “You were a persistent man.”

  “I knew what I wanted,” Tait appended. “And kissing Ottarr’s arse was not enough for me to gain it. I had to go into his house and steal his daughter in the night.”

  “Indeed,” she said, her lips brushing against his. “Nothing could have kept you from me. And I was helpless to your charm.”

  Tait’s lips cu
rved into a wry smile remembering the evening he stole her from her bed. “You hardly looked helpless when you knelt before me and took me in your mouth.”

  Thordia retracted her hands from his kirtle and slipped them inside the collar, fanning them against his bare chest. “Is that all you remember?”

  Tait drew a deep breath, realizing what game his wife was playing. She was coyly gentling him so he would forget all about his burdens. For the moment, it seemed to work, but his erection could boast anything but being gentled. He was hard to the peak of pain, aroused at feeling her velvet touch and swelled breasts on his chest, not to mention the handful of feminine ass in his possession.

  In one speedy motion, he lifted her body from his and slung her to the side, laying her firmly on the boxbed. Being careful of her belly, he hovered above her on all fours. “What I remember is you calling my name as I spread your legs.”

  Thordia smiled brazenly. “My father would have killed you had he ever found out.”

  “He would still kill me this day if he knew I took his daughter before our wedding night.”

  “And yet it never stopped you.”

  Tait reached down and hiked the length of her gown up over her bent knees and around her hips, exposing her thigh to his bare touch. “Do you dare stop me now?”

  “Never.”

  He liked her answer. And though he knew he had been snared, enticed, and fooled by her feminine wiles, he didn’t care. She was beneath him, ready to be taken, practically begging for it as she looked up at him.

  He raised himself off her, still kneeling between her legs, so she could clearly see what she had done to him as he removed his pants. Her eyes fell below his waist and it aroused him even more to see her tiny pink tongue dart out and slide across her lips in anticipation.

  After his breeches were removed, he threw both hands behind his head and grabbed his kirtle, yanking it off. He was nearly quivering with excitement as he had been kept away from her bed for too long. His journeys to neighboring ports and even far-off lands were a must and he could even admit to enjoying them. But not at the expense of being withheld from the pleasures of his wife’s love.

  Tait lowered himself upon her gently, taking great pains not to crush the babe within her. He touched her nose with his and captured her lips in a long heated kiss, unleashing his desire, which had been pent up for days.

  To his surprise, she brought back the underlying subject. “What if my father did stop you? What if he had married me to the knave you despised so much?”

  He drew his face back and looked into her eyes. “I would have rather died than know another man was going to share your bed, taste your love, and feed from your body as I had done so many times.”

  He tried to kiss her again, but she avoided it by saying, “Then why would you want to do that to Breandán and Mara?”

  Tait froze.

  Another kick to his groin!

  “Did you…” He couldn’t believe she actually had the nerve to say that bastard’s name at the moment he was planning to make sweet love to her. His voice quivered. “Tell me I heard you wrong, Thordia.”

  “Mara has been so happy since his return to the isle,” Thordia explained. “Breandán has brought a smile to her face and she—”

  Tait made haste to leave her embrace, but she wrapped her legs tight around his back, keeping him near.

  “Tait, listen to me. Mara enjoys his company. He appeals to her in ways no one else has since Dægan died.”

  “Thordia,” Tait warned, his jaw clenching.

  “I am not saying she is in love with him, but if it happens, would it not be grand?”

  “Grand?” Tait repeated, the sound of that possibility absurd to his very ears. He punched his fist at the bedding beside her head. “There is nothing grand about Mara, my best friend’s wife, falling in—”

  “Widow,” Thordia corrected, stroking his tortured face. “She has been a widow for more than seven years. She deserves to find love again.”

  “Not with that man,” Tait interjected sternly.

  Thordia brought her hands to his sides, stroking up his ribs and over his chest, her touch weakening him.

  “Stop it,” Tait said, closing his eyes. He was well aware of her trickery now and swore he would not succumb.

  “Look at me and say that,” Thordia prompted.

  He couldn’t. In all honesty, he never wanted her to stop touching him. But this was not the time anymore. She had ruined his objective by uttering Breandán’s name in their bed, and his concentration was no longer on her luscious pregnant body—at least for the moment. It was impossible to permanently rid her open thighs from his thoughts. She was holding him vised against her delicate flesh, his erection pressed soundly in the folds of her sex.

  Oh, the warmth of her taunted him so!

  And he knew if he thrust himself within her, she would be twice as warm.

  “Do you love me?” Thordia asked, her hands eloquently gliding down his stomach to the sensitive flat of his pelvis. She found his shaft and ran her fingertips along its length on both sides.

  Tait shuddered, his mind drawing a complete blank as he could think of nothing else but her touch on his throbbing manhood. He inhaled deeply, as if trying to supply his brain with enough oxygen to remember what the hell she said.

  “I said, do you love me?”

  “Of course,” he spat in a heated breath.

  She took his entire shaft in her hands, guiding him into her, his tip barely entering her wet delicious sheath. “I know you love me,” she coaxed, raising her hips into him. “I can feel it.”

  She was killing him slowly, tempting him to forget his grudges by milking his gluttonous male libido. And God help him, he didn’t care.

  “And I know you care enough about Mara to wish the best for her.”

  He ignored her. Tried to.

  While pushing his hips toward her, he shoved her words from his thoughts, focusing on the feel of her body taking him in, the silken sleeve molding around him. There was nothing more amazing than this moment. At least while it was happening, if she’d only allow him this pleasure.

  Inwardly, he begged her not to speak.

  “Let Breandán heal her heart.”

  Damn woman!

  He squeezed his eyes shut, aghast at her persistence. He thrust further in, fighting her the only way he could, though he doubted his strategy was as effective as hers.

  “Let Mara feel whole again, Tait. Let her find happiness in a man.”

  Gunnar, he thought to himself. She’d find happiness with Gunnar.

  Before Thordia could say another word, Tait clasped his hand over her mouth and drove himself all the way inside her, watching her eyes flutter for a second.

  He smiled wryly, keeping his hand across her lips. “No more talk,” he demanded in a whisper. He could feel the rise of her smile beneath his fingers, knowing he had finally struck a place within her, and to his delight, it seemed to be buried deep within.

  Tait thrust again and never stopped until he had left her so exhausted she couldn’t speak.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Gustaf awoke first, as he had done many times since he shared his bed with Æsa, and watched her sleep. She was so beautiful lying there, curled against the nook of his sidelong embrace, her soft, round bottom fitting perfectly against his groin.

  With her dark lashes feathering against her high cheekbones, and her hands folded neatly beneath her immaculate face, she looked innocent as she slept. However—as he had recently found out—she was anything but innocent.

  They had made love so many nights, experimented with countless positions. And none of those would have been intimated by a chaste woman. She was free with her body, and he gave her no reason not to be. In fact, he encouraged her to be more open, to tell him all her fantasies so he could fulfill every single one, every imaginative desire.

  And, oh, how grand it was to satisfy them.

  He recalled the one night she had
asked him to cover her eyes before touching her. She had the most radiant smile on her lips as she waited patiently for his caress.

  Her breasts….

  Nay. That would be too obvious, he remembered thinking.

  The inside of her thigh….

  Nay. That would be a place he couldn’t stop touching, especially once his hand trailed higher. He needed to start out on a place she’d least expect, but one that would cause her to long for his touch in more private places.

  He recalled where his fingers had begun…her dainty left ankle.

  Gustaf had stroked around the top and bottom of her—surprisingly unticklish—foot, tracing her arch with barely-there fingertips. But eventually he’d brought his hand up her calf, dawdling around her bent knee.

  He smiled as he remembered how her legs fell open, enticing him to take notice of every blessed part of her. And because he could, he had stared. He had gazed over the core of her pelvis, admiring the beautiful patch of red hair concealing the slit he so yearned to see. There was something about a woman’s genitals, that sweet alluring cleft that could get a man’s blood pumping and arouse a need so great—so voracious—he almost felt dangerous.

  Even now, he had become just as hard, wanting to slip his hand down her lovely stomach and nestle his hand amid all her delicateness.

  Compulsion got the best of him, and he skated his palm past her hips, slipping his eager fingers between the creamy skin of her inner thighs. His mouth watered as he probed further, feeling the soft curls around her sex. He parted her gently, and skimmed his middle finger along the smooth inside edge of her.

  She moaned in her sleep, bending her knee higher, unaware she had made it doubly difficult for him to touch her. The only thing he could do without removing his hand and moving her leg aside was prod deeper. He felt an immense heat as he buried his digit into her entrance.

  Then, and only then, did she awaken, gasping at the brusque intrusion.

  He smiled upon seeing her wide, resplendent eyes as she rolled from her side to her back. “Good morning,” Gustaf uttered coyly.